hypercarssfandomcom-20200214-history
Koenigsegg
Koenigsegg Automotive AB is a Swedish manufacturer of high-performance sports cars, based in Ängelholm, Skåne County, Sweden. The company was founded in 1994 in Sweden by Christian von Koenigsegg, with the intention of producing a "world-class" supercar. Many years of development and prototyping led to the company's first street-legal production car delivery in 2002. In 2006 Koenigsegg began production of the CCX, which uses an engine created in-house especially for that vehicle. The CCX is street-legal in most countries, including the United States. In March 2009 the Koenigsegg CCXR was listed by Forbes as one of "the world's most beautiful cars”. In December 2010 the Koenigsegg Agera won the BBC Top Gear Hypercar of the Year Award. Apart from developing, manufacturing and selling the Koenigsegg line of supercars, Koenigsegg is also involved in "green technology" development programmes beginning with the CCXR ("Flower Power") flex-fuel supercar and continuing through the present with the Agera R. Koenigsegg is also active in development programs of plug-in electric cars' systems and next-generation reciprocating enginetechnologies. Koenigsegg also is workingwhen? on a camless piston engine for the Regera.4 Koenigsegg develops and produces most of the main systems, subsystems and components needed for their cars in-house instead of relying on subcontractors. At the end of 2015 Koenigsegg had 97 employees, with an engineering department of 25 engineers, led by the founder.5 History Prototypes and production The initial design of the Koenigsegg CC was drawn by von Koenigsegg. Industrial designer David Crafoord realised the sketches as a 1:5 scale model. This model was later scaled up in order to create the base plug for the initial Koenigsegg prototype that was finished in 1996. During the next years the prototype went through extensive testing and several new prototypes were built. Factory history Christian von Koenigsegg got the idea to build his own car after watching the Norwegian stop-motion animated movie Pinchcliffe Grand Prix in his youth.6 He took his first steps in the world of business in his early 20s running a trading company called Alpraaz in Stockholm, Sweden. Alpraaz exported food from Europe to the developing world. The success of this venture gave von Koenigsegg the necessary financial standing to launch his chosen career as a car manufacturer. Initially, Koenigsegg Automotive was based in Olofström. In 1997 the company needed larger facilities and moved to a farm, just outside Ängelholm. On 22 February 2003, one of the production facilities caught fire and was badly damaged. From 2003 on the two large fighter-jet hangars and an office building were converted into a car factory. Since it is located on the still-active Ängelholm airport, clients can arrive by private jet nearby. Koenigsegg controls and uses the former military runway for shakedown runs of production cars and high-speed testing. The Koenigsegg badge was designed in 1994 by Jacob Låftman, based on the heraldic coat of arms of the Koenigsegg family. The shield has been the family's coat of arms since the 12th century when a family member was knighted by the Germany-based Holy Roman Empire. Attempted purchase of Saab On 12 June 2009, the media reported that Koenigsegg Group, consisting of Koenigsegg Automotive AB, Christian von Koenigsegg, Bård Eker and a group of investors led by Mark Bishop had signed a letter of intent with Saab to take over the brand from General Motors. General Motors confirmed on June 16 that they had chosen Koenigsegg Group as the buyer of Saab Automobile.7 The deal, set to close 30 September 2009, included US$600 million in financing from the European Investment Bank, guaranteed by the Swedish government. By comparison, in 2008 Koenigsegg with its staff of 45 produced 18 cars at an average price of US$1 million each; Saab employed 3,400 workers and made more than 93,000 cars.8 General Motors announced on 18 August that the deal had been signed, although certain financing details remained to be completed. On 9 September 2009, Koenigsegg announced that BAIC was going to join as a minority stakeholder in Koenigsegg.9 In November 2009 Koenigsegg decided not to finalise the purchase of Saab and, therefore, left the negotiations. The timing uncertainty of finalisation of the take over was the reason Koenigsegg stated for leaving the deal.10 Models A Koenigsegg CC prototype was first publicised in 1996, while the full carbon fibreproduction prototype was finally unveiled at the 2000 Paris Motor Show. The first customer took delivery of a red CC8S in 2002 at the Geneva Auto Show and four more cars were built that year. Koenigsegg was established in Asia later that year with a premiere at the Seoul Auto Show. In 2004 the new CCR was unveiled at the Geneva Auto Show; only 14 were made. In 2006 Koenigsegg introduced the CCX, a new model, that was created in order to meet worldwide regulations for road use. This meant the cars had to go through extensive development in order to meet the latest and most stringent safety and emission standards that the world's authorities demanded; Koenigsegg had to, for example, develop their own engines and other related technologies. Furthermore, Koenigsegg is the only supercar and low-volume manufacturer to pass the new European pedestrian impact tests. Just after Koenigsegg passed this test, the requirement was deemed too complicated for compliance by low-volume manufacturers, so it is now unnecessary to meet these regulations if the production volume of a given model is less than 10,000 cars annually. In 2007 Koenigsegg premiered the CCXR, a biofuel/flex-fuel version of the CCX. The car features a modified engine, fuel system, and engine management system that enables the car to run on regular petrol or ethanol, and in any mixture between these two fuels. Ethanol has a higher octane rating compared to regular fuel and has an internal cooling effect on the combustion chamber, which allows increased performance. In 2009 Koenigsegg released information about a special edition car called the Trevita, of which three were planned to be made but only two were finished due to technical problems. The Trevita, which translates into English as "three whites", has a body made entirely of Koenigsegg's proprietary material consisting of diamond-coated carbon fibre. The Trevita is based on the CCXR, and therefore produces 1,018 hp (759 kW) when running on biofuel.